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If you have to pick one decade from the last fifty or so that has generated the most energy and diversity on the music scene, it would have to be the 80s. Rising out of the ashes of a disco dominated 70s era the 1980s gave birth and new life to so many different genres that it would take a book to do it justice. (more…)

It’s no secret that everything has changed since technology has evolved the way it has in the past decade. Times are changing! Long gone are the days where people are buying whole physical albums just to listen to one or two songs. Nowadays, people would much rather stream their favorite songs from a subscription service or just download their music. The same way that people are no longer buying or renting movies, they are choosing to stream them from Netflix. People are refusing to physically go into casinos to play slots, instead they are choosing to use Pokerstarscasino website, and gone are the days of leaving the house to go buy groceries when you can order and have them delivered to you from Amazon. As technology continues to take over lives and streaming becoming the predominant way of accessing music, here are the effects of streaming on the music industry.

Artists just aren’t getting paid like they once were

It’s no denying that when album sales were booming and music videos were being played on tv, artists made a lot more money. There has been numerous issues and controversies centered around streaming music that many musicians have noticed. One example of this is Taylor Swift’s public removal of her music from all free streaming services and her open letter to Apple Music. Swift wrote in a Tumblr post responding to news that Apple Music would not be paying artists for streams accumulated during a user’s 3 month trial, “This is the new artist or band that has just released their first single and will not be paid for its success.” Shortly after this, Apple announced that artists would, in fact, get paid, and Swift even went on to produce adverts with them. However, Swift still doesn’t have any of her music on Spotify and many other streaming services after her camp claimed they didn’t get paid as much per year for her music as Spotify claimed to have paid.

It’s no longer about releasing albums

With consumers hearing a hit song and immediately downloading from their favorite music subscription services, such as Pandora, Spotify, or Apple Music, there is no reason for fans to anticipate albums anymore. These streaming services are either free or charge a monthly fee, which makes royalties paid to musicians even smaller. It has been proven that consumers only actually listen to one or two songs from an entire music album, and with that being said, record labels and artists are not focusing on releasing albums, but instead, they are focusing on releasing the next hottest song to top the charts.

Record label revenues are steadily declining

It is definitely much harder for artists to make the money that they once made in the music industry. Not only are music royalties almost nonexistent, but purchased MP3 downloads and album sales have steadily declined over the last several years. In 1999, Napster, one of the first music downloading services was established, and that was one of the last successful years for the music industry. That was the case up until streaming became popular in 2016. Today, with over 100 million subscribers across different streaming platforms, it has proven to get the record companies out of their rut. Not through traditional sales, however, but instead, through a percentage of the streaming subscriptions and advertisements on their artists’ records.

Songs aren’t topping the charts like they used to

The effects of streaming music on the charts, both worldwide and in the UK, is quite disappointing. Every 100 streams of a song equal one sale, according to the UK official charts. This rule is not only making the chart inaccurate, but it is allowing the chart to be much easier to manipulate. Statistics show that only 86 songs entered the top 40 in the first half of last year, which is a huge decline from a decade ago when that number was 230. This just proves that fewer artists are breaking into the charts, making it much harder for newer artists to break into the mainstream music chart. Streaming music can be very easily manipulated seeing as to how certain songs can be put into playlists and played without the user’s request, whereas if a user went and purchased a single, it would mean that they genuinely liked the music.

Many experts would argue that the streaming of music has saved the industry. The validity of this statement greatly depends on the record label in question, the artist, and the consumer. Undeniably, streaming has changed the world of music in more ways than one. The focus on creating hit singles rather than entire albums, the revenue model, and consumer satisfaction are all now key factors with the digitization of how music is listened to.

2017 has been a great year for music, perhaps one of the best years the industry has
seen in a while. There have been new artists emerging and making a name for themselves. The year has by far been one of the best years in music. Each album better than the next. These artists all with their own unique voice and sound, whether it was someone making a comeback or someone making their debut there was a wide birth of variety and cultural representation. (more…)

Every era has its music and throughout history cultural changes, technology and talent have driven the development of a particular style and those artists who perform. It used to be that live performing was a given and that in order to become a successful musical artist one had to have sufficient skill to do that, to the satisfaction of a live audience. More recently the advent of certain technology means perhaps less talented or certainly differently gifted individuals can create a sound that may appeal on radio or record but not necessarily translate in the live arena. So, the question is, is there still a market for those bands whose main appeal is their live performance especially ones who can provide the thrill of a large stadium concert? (more…)

The rise in popularity of indie music has grown over the years, of course indie bands have been around long before the early 2000’s but it was in these years that we began to see a true increase in the popularity of these bands, they became dare we say, mainstream. An indie band is categorized as a band who does not sign with a major record label, they typically sign with an independent record label or they choose to produce their own music. (more…)

Music is such an integral part of our lives these days, you see people listening to it as they walk down the street, as they work, as they exercise and so much more. You may see then moving to the rhythm before you even notice the discreet headphones or perhaps they have large head phones and want you to know exactly what they are listening to. Listening to music dates back centuries, even the Bible says that there is a time to dance. And throughout time music has been recorded as being a part of almost every culture and country that has existed. (more…)

To make money from YouTube, you need to have a lot of visitors and subscribers that will constantly return to your channel. The whole process can be hard because there is a lot of competition. Every niche is covered and there are thousands of people uploading videos on a particular niche. Patience is the key. Getting popular means thinking outside the box and demonstrating an incredible level of creativity. Youtube stars know how to engage the audience as well as how to communicate and deliver messages properly. I will mention some of the greatest Youtube stars that are making enormous amounts of money. (more…)

The music business can be very cruel, and most artists do not find it easy to make money. A brief explanation came out recently when the UK industry discovered that artists managed to make more money by selling vinyl in 2016 than getting paid for views on YouTube. BPI data shows that vinyl sales in the UK are growing for the ninth year in a row, with sales of about 3.2 million records and 41.7 million in revenue for publishing houses and artists. By contrast, a music video streaming, dominated by YouTube, made only £ 25.5 million. (more…)